South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri Dec 27th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Building NE windswell Fri, peaking Sat, favouring MNC for size
• Small leftover Sun with light/variable winds
• Minor SE-E/SE swells into New Years Eve and most of next week with light winds
• Possible tradeswell developing by next weekend and into second week of 2025- check back Mon for latest updates

Recap

Fun sized S-SE swells across NENSW yesterday offered up 2-3ft surf with the odd 4ft set at swell magnets, smaller 2ft or less in SEQLD. Conditions were clean early under light land breezes tending to mod SE’lies. Small S/SE swells to 2 occ. 3ft continue in NENSW today with tiny surf in SEQLD. Only a brief window of clean conditions before N’lies kicked up and freshened. Those winds are expected to exceed 20kts.

Clean, fun S swell leftovers Boxing Day across NENSW

This weekend (Dec28-29)

No great change to the weekend f/cast. Fresh N’lies bring some workable NE windswell for the keen, up to the 2-3ft range. N’lies will blow all day in SEQLD with a trough bringing a S’ly change to Coffs around early morning, late a’noon across the North Coast and moving across the border after dark. There may be a brief window of OK surf at N facing points around the change. Expect NE windswell to ease across the North Coast post change. 

Light winds for Sun under a weak, troughy environment with a weak high cell moving off the South Coast during the day. Light land breezes should tend variable with a light/mod SE-E/SE flow in the a’noon. Small, weak surf to 1-2ft tops  will offer a wave for kids and beginners. 

Next week (Dec30 onwards)

Huey will be not be offering much in the way of surf for the last days of 2024. The outlook is low energy with weak high pressure moving into the Tasman and no swells of any significance in the near or far swell windows. We’ll see light winds Mon and Tues, as a weak trough sits off the QLD Coast. Little E/SE windswells in the 1-2ft range Mon and Tues. Best case scenario NYE is for similar surf. 

Same again for New Years Day. 

No real change expected for the rest of the week either. A weak troughy pattern with just enough energy from local SE-E/SE winds to hold a 1-2ft wave at the most optimistic scenario. 

We may start to see a trade flow develop into the end of next week, and into the second week of Jan but the high pressure belt still looks unconvincing. Elongated and weak. GFS has a more optimistic scenario which would see some small peaky tradeswell develop in the sub-tropics through next weekend and into the week beginning 6/1. Small E/NE swells would slowly filter down from this source into more temperate areas during that week if the trade fetch becomes persistent. 

Nothing concrete at this stage but we’ll see how it looks when we come back Mon.

Seeya then and have a great weekend!